USA Outdoors

My first US National Championships—a time to line up against guys I had competed against during college, guys I’ve watched at world championships, and even guys for whom I’ve stood in line for an autograph (mainly Bernard Lagat)!  And even coming out of the race with a 10^th place showing and a new PR of 13:41 (formerly 13:44 from 2011), I must admit disappointment, but only the most disappointment one is allowed when setting a new PR.  Of course I’m thrilled to finally knock a few seconds off my 5k time after three years of injury and frustration, stoked to have competed and placed top 10 in a national championship, but it was the story line that unfolded during the race rather than the results which is the root of my dismay. A video of the race can be found here.

At no point during the race did I feel that I was in the race.  The entirety of the race from my perspective was just hanging on by a thread to the lead pack which surged and slowed in the mildly windy conditions and relatively slow first half.  With each ebb and flow propagating and exaggerating itself throughout the bulk of the pack, I was caught on the tail end of the accordion, fighting on each backstretch to keep contact and finding myself backing off the gas on the homestretch.

As the race began to pick up the last mile, I was able to consciously make moves around those who were dropping off, but I never really felt like a competitor in the lead pack—and it is in that where I find my greatest disappointment.

Coming into race week, my legs had been feeling pretty fatigued from the intensity of our training and I was without much of an explanation as to why I was so energy poor.  My best guess is cumulative training fatigue in combination with the illness my body had to fight last week which left me searching for that “pop and spring” so desperately desired during race week.  As my college coach pointed out in an encouraging email to me, “If you run a PR when everything is perfect, that is to be expected.  If you run a PR when things aren’t quite right, that is a much better accomplishment.”

Yet with all that being said, as my close friend Ricky Lupp reminded me in a phone call the afternoon of the race, “It’s crazy to think that on Jan 1 you weren’t even running, and now you’re in the national championships.”  And more truthfully is that my training didn’t resume until March 1.  My coach, Dennis Barker, remarked after the race that two months ago if he had proposed I could be 10^th at the national championships, I would have told him to stop dreaming.

If anything, I feel that this performance is an encouraging introduction to the runner I can blossom to be under the careful guidance of Dennis, the support of Team USA Minnesota, and the support of Saucony.  Now that Dennis and I have begun to figure each other out with the coach/athlete relationship and have been in a training good rhythm for four months to bring me to a new 5k PR, I am supremely confident that with additional consistent training under his tutelage that some very exciting things can happen.

And I’m excited to announce here that I will be taking off for a series of track races in Europe tomorrow!  I will be traveling with my teammate, Jon Peterson, and we will be competing in the following meets:

7/5 - 3000m at Memorial Leon Buyle Meeting in Oordegem, Belgium

7/13 – Mile at Letterkenny AC Meeting in Letterkenny, Ireland

7/19 – 5000m at KBC Nacht Meeting in Heusden, Netherlands

I will be doing my best to update my blog during my travels and give race reports for the next month!

Results:

1 Bernard Lagat Nike 13:31.41
2 Andrew Bumbalough Nike / Bowerman Track Club 13:32.01
3 Hassan Mead Nike / Oregon TC Elite 13:32.42
4 Ryan Hill Nike / Bowerman Track Club 13:32.82
5 David Torrence Nike 13:34.95
6 Trevor Dunbar Oregon 13:34.96
7 Joe Bosshard Colorado 13:38.19
8 Jonathan Peterson Team USA Minnesota 13:39.51
9 Tyler Pennel Reebok / ZAP Fitness Reebok 13:40.49
10 Eric Finan Team USA Minnesota 13:41.33
11 Joe Stilin ZAP Fitness Reebok 13:48.05
12 Daniel Quigley Nike / Oregon TC Elite 13:52.86
13 Brendan Gregg Hansons-Brooks Distance Projec 13:56.18
14 Scott Dahlberg Boulder Running Company/adidas 14:01.87
15 Sean Keveren Unattached 14:07.95
16 Lex Williams Unattached 14:11.73
DNF Erik Olson Stanford

Lessons in Portland

This is a tough race to write about.  After the high of breaking 4 minutes in the mile 10 days ago, this race could be considered a rather grounding event.  In the last week and a half after the mile, Jon and I have put in some good sessions on the track that set us both up well for a 13:30 race, but things just didn’t click tonight.

A couple of days ago I came down with a cold that left me deprived of my normal energy and my legs feeling flat.  Come race day I was on the recovering side of the hump, but apparently not quite far enough away from the peak for the body to cooperate for a fast time.  It is frustrating after having put in the work and knowing that I’m in PR shape for a stroke of bad luck to catch me like this on a last chance meet, but that’s the nature of sport. 

Enough of a preamble, let’s get right down to a race recap.  First things first: I lined up next to Mo Farah (2012 Olympic Champion in 5k and 10k, amongst other credentials) and said what I always say to my fellow competitors on the line, “Good luck.”  He didn’t return the omen.  From the race results, it was apparent he didn’t need my wish of luck anyway.

The pacer was erratic the first mile, as the first 800 was covered in 2:14, the next in 2:09, resulting in a mile split of 4:23.  At this point I was feeling decent, but was having a hard time getting into the psyche of a real race.  The next couple of laps clicked by and I found myself getting gapped by the pack ahead of me, yet my legs were stuck on cruise control around 67 seconds per lap.  Every time I tried to switch gears to try and close the gap on the pack, my legs gave a sluggish response and refused to respond to my mind’s urgings.  I believe I split 8:46 or so at two miles, meaning that my second mile ended up being a rather lackadaisical 4:33.

The gap slowly increased over the next few laps paralleling my decreasing mental focus on finishing hard.  It was like my mind and legs were both slowly turning simultaneously into sludge and only a small part of my sub-conscious ineffectively fought back.

Finishing in 13:47.83 is still my second best time ever, and this after only 3.5 months of consistent training; a far cry from my 3 continuous years of training leading up to my PR race of 13:44.91.  It’s also a long way from the 13:32.00 I had set my sights on to achieve the “A” standard and get an auto-qualifier for the US Outdoor Championships.  I am now in limbo and will have to wait until Wednesday when final declarations are made to see if I can sneak into the race based on field size (meaning that if not enough individuals get the auto-qualifier of 13:32.00, they then go to the descending order list and let in individuals based on time until they reach a field size of 24).

Every race serves a purpose and an opportunity to learn about myself as an athlete.  I would say the takeaway from today is how much mental preparation and visualization of success before the race can make a difference.  I found myself slowly sliding down the valley of doubt with the onset of my cold several days ago.  And even though most of it had lifted physically, holes were still pierced through my confidence.  I am continually discovering the power of the mind when it comes to athletic events and the need to believe, even when the circumstances appear grim.

Shoutout to Kevin Schwarz, a close friend and supporter, for coming to the race

Shelton Track Club                          6/15/2014 - 9:46 PM
 Portland Track Festival - Open - 2014 - 6/14/2014 to 6/15/2014 
                     6/14/2014 to 6/15/2014                     
 
Event 24  Men 5000 Meter Run High Performance
================================================================
 Meet Record: R 13:19.78  6/9/2012    Dathan Ritzenhein, Nike Or
     USATF-A: A 13:32.00                                        
    Name                    Year Team                    Finals 
================================================================
Finals                                                          
  1 Farah, Mo                    Nike Oregon Project   13:23.42
  2 McNeill, David               New Balance           13:28.13
  3 Rono, Aron                   Wcap                  13:35.80
  4 Stilin, Joseph               Zap Fitness           13:36.21
  5 Keveren, Sean                Ragged Mount          13:39.26
  6 Quigley, Daniel              Oregon Track Club     13:41.37
  7 Pennel, Tyler                Zap Fitness           13:41.56
  8 Peterson, Jonathan           Team Usa Mn/Brooks    13:42.65
  9 Bruchet, Luc                 Point Grey Tfc        13:45.66
 10 Fernandez, German            Nbsv                  13:47.08
 11 Finan, Eric                  Team Usa Minneso      13:47.83
 12 Dahlberg, Scott              BoulderRunCo/adidas   13:56.94
 13 Kwiatkowski, Chris           Pacers New Balance    13:58.67
 14 Reid, Phillip                Asics Aggie           13:59.02
 15 Britt, Barry                 Vandal Track Club     14:01.38
 16 Puskedra, Luke               Nike Oregon Project   14:01.48
 17 Zarda, Zach                  Unattached            14:13.05
 18 Halsted, Trevor              Unattached            14:21.59
 19 Gildea, Sean                 Colorado Sch          14:34.39
 -- Smail, Nouredine             American Dis               DNF

3:58.73

Wow.

3:58.73.

My first PR in three years. The race video can be found here. My post race blubbering of excitement can be found here and here. Finally, a small article on the race can be found here.

After the injury riddled winter I had, having only been training for three months, having this kind of race was a big surprise.  My confidence has been so down this spring following such a disappointing winter and a rather mediocre race at the Oxy High Performance meet.

But with my first sub-4 mile, the win, and meet record, my confidence made a bold move back in the right direction.  We have been training hard lately and let up just enough before this race that my legs finally felt like they had some zip to them and fortunately I was able to capitalize on the day.

Going into the meet, the elite athlete coordinator took a chance on me just getting me to the starting line since my previous mile PR of 4:04.94 was from 2010.  When I had run that four years ago, I remember the dream of a sub-4 mile suddenly became real—tangible.  But following that year I took a wrong turn on Unlucky Street and ended up in Injury City.  That dream of a sub-4 mile began to fade and over time it weathered to a silvery grey—a distant thought that occasionally slipped in and out of my mind.

Fast forward to two weeks ago when my teammate, Jon Peterson, and I ran a 5 x (500, 300, 200) workout on the track, all at sub-4 pace.  It was one of the hardest workouts of my life, resulting in two collapsed heaps on the track following the last set, yet we were able to maintain sub-4 pace through to the end.  It was when I was lying on the track, gasping for air, lactic acid pooling in my legs that the dream of a sub-4 mile started to gain color again.

As I did my prerace routine of a Clif Bar and coffee, that dream seemed to gain strength and life.  I began to imagine what it would feel like to cross the line and see 3:5X.X.  I told myself that with 500 to go, I could maintain sub-4 pace, no matter how much pain I felt.  I had proved that in the workout two weeks earlier. 

Yet with 600 to go, I found myself not hurting at all—in fact when I heard “2:30” from the timer shouting splits, the only thought I had was, “This is it. This is the day. Sub-4 in the mile is happening right now.”  With 400 to go, I stayed calm and relaxed having a few more gears to shift.  At 250, I decided to swing wide and move around a pack of five, which pulled me even with Leo Manzano (2012 Olympic Silver Medallist in the 1500).  With 150 to go, on the outside of lane one, I was neck and neck with Manzano.  We hit the final straight…..and to my own disbelief, I began to edge ahead.  Inch by inch, I was pulling away.  As Manzano faded out of my peripheral, Hamish Carson came into focus and we fought each other right to the line.  With 10 meters to go, I honestly was just looking at the clock and realizing I was going to finally break 4. In my final step, race instinct kicked in one more time and told me to lean.  Good thing I did because it got me the win by 0.01 seconds!

The final kick

Immediately after finishing, I went up to the finish line official, put my hand on his shoulder, and asked, “That was a full mile, right?” I wanted to make sure it was real!  He looked at me with a confused face and answered, “Yeah….a full mile.”  Only then did I ask if I had won and after a short minute, they reviewed the photo finish and revealed me as the victor.  I could not have been more shocked.

For the first time in my life, I had a line of kids next to me after the race asking for autographs.  The first kid handed me a pair of Saucony LD4 spikes (the ones I had raced in!) and I stood there and asked him where he wanted me to sign them.  He shrugged his shoulders and I laughed, “This is the first time anyone has ever asked for my autograph, thanks!” 

So with that mile under my belt, I now am gearing up for the Portland Track Festival 5k next weekend with a greater sense of confidence.  The time to hit is 13:32, which is the “A” Standard (guaranteed entry) to compete in the US Outdoor Championships at the end of June in Sacramento.  I definitely feel a little pressure going into it to make it happen, but the little boost of confidence from this mile PR is going to help in a big way. 

3:58.73 to win the Adro Mile

Time to Race

My first race in 10 months.  My first 1500 in 3 years. 

Words I never thought I would have to write in my online running log (found here).  It has been a strange and difficult last two years with the transition out of college to a new team, new coach, new city. 

After moving to Minneapolis in the fall to join Team USA Minnesota, I hit a few bumps.  First a right achilles injury in the fall, then a left achilles injury in the winter, and then an iron deficiency just a couple weeks ago that had me in total wonder as to why I was so exhausted.  Yet through these situations, I finally was able to dust off the spikes and lace up for a 1500 at Macalester College.

Admittedly it wasn’t anything to write home about, but I did come away with the win after running wire to wire in 3:55.05.  It was the classic “first race syndrome” with jello legs halfway through and the feeling of running through sand the last 200.  Challenged with 400 to go, my rusty race instincts booted up and turned a rusty gear to hold off my opponent and close with a little room to spare.

While my past 7 months of training have been rather inconsistent, I’m hoping that a little reliance on Old Man Strength, a friendly runner’s term, will carry me through this season unscathed to some faster times once I hit the track for a 5k.  On deck for next weekend is the Payton Jordan 5k at Stanford—a mecca of sort for US distance runners and a prime opportunity for a fast race.  This will be my first ever trip to Palo Alto to hit the famed oval there, as we never made the journey during my collegiate days.

I have a tendency to liken this first year with Team USA Minnesota to my first year at the University of Cincinnati, which my legendary college coach, Bill Schnier, likes to call, “the worst freshman year of anyone he’d ever coached.”  While I wouldn’t exactly call this year the worst, it certainly has been far from consistent, which has a direct impact on my performances.  I always told our freshman at Cincinnati to be patient and let the work come to fruition with time, as it would take a year to get used to the new level of training to see the fruits of their labor.  Likewise, I see that same thing at work here at Team USA Minnesota: my first year might have a couple flashes of bright light (hopefully a 5k PR!), but I am confident that with consistency under this new program that I will be able to reap what I have sowed in the next year.

   

I often think about what Ben True said when he was under Mark Coogan—he gave himself 5 years.  Those first two years he did well with a couple of hot races, but he really took off on that third year running some incredible races on the track and fighting with the top guys in the US for national team spots.  I hope that my story is similar and too can be inspiring for others seeking the highest level in athletics.

Sunny SoCal - Winter Update

It has been a while.  As I told our team therapist, Travis (who, by the way, is the best and coolest therapist you'll ever meet), "I don't write much when I'm injured--nobody really wants to read a depressing story."

So I hope that explains my absence.  In brief, the timeline was as follows:

1. Injured on December 31st.  Achilles sore to walk on after run.
2. I'm thinking, "Ok, a repeat of Thanksgiving--two weeks and I'm back at it."
3. Two weeks elapse and I am still limping around 
4. I cancel all of my flights/accommodations for indoor season and have to swallow the reality that I will not be racing another season
5. I begin to sink into the dreaded running-deprived depression (diagnosed as RDD)
6. At the suggestion of my coach, Dennis Barker, and team president, Pat Goodwin, I seek warmer climate
7. Luckily, I have amazing friends and former teammates who have an extra bedroom in their apartment in southern California
8. Boom, I book the flight and leave the arctic tundra, also known as Minneapolis
9. I find myself surfing and saying "gnarly bro"

Ok, that last point is a bit of a stretch, but I did find a renewed sense of mind in being able to walk outside without prepping like I was about to summit Everest.  The sand, sun, and surf distracted my mind from RDD as I sunk into another routine of swimming at the gym and enjoying warm evenings in the hot tub.

Sunset from Brian and Cort's Apartment in Carlsbad

I sought out the help of a few different therapists while out here to get some other eyes on my achilles injury to make sure we weren't missing anything with my appointments back home.  Disappointingly, I received the same feedback with each visit, until I visited a master Muscle Activation Technique (M.A.T.) specialist, Debi Huber.  My first visit with her was a bit unconvincing, but she wanted me to come back a second time for an experiment.  I decided to play her game and what happened next is recorded in my running log on Running2Win.com, which I'll copy here:

Went and saw Debi Huber for a second M.A.T. appointment. I was a little hesitant going in and seeing her again, but she said she wanted to do some strength tests, have me run lightly, and then retest me to see if she could find any specific weaknesses. If she couldn't find anything, she wouldn't charge me for the visit. So I agreed to her little experiment.

Got there, she tested some stuff, and then I went out and ran for 6 minutes, fully expecting my achilles to be sore by the end of it, even though it's been feeling so good lately. Well...I finished 6 minutes pain free! She then ran some strength tests on me and just kept working high up in my back and neck. And then she told me to go "play" again for 8 minutes. 

I again left the office with exuberantly at the opportunity to run. About 80% of me was thrilled with 20% of me haunted with the thought of feeling pain on any one of my next steps. Eight minutes passed, I returned to her office, still without pain. I couldn't believe it. I specifically asked her, "What kind of magic spell did you cast on me? Whatever this anti-pain spell is, I like it." She was likewise happy and then spent about 20 minutes further working on my back and upper neck.

And here comes the kicker: she told me to go play for another 10 minutes. I was a little worried for my first day back, but she just wanted to make sure she wasn't missing anything and if my achilles started to hurt, she thought she mind find something else. Went for 10 minutes and returned pain free yet again! I literally could not have been more excited. I was grunting with joy (yes, grunting). The cars driving by probably thought I was a mad man, and they would have been right.

I returned to Debi's office and she worked on me one more time and then told me to take it easy the next week and let her know how I feel. She may or may not have me in one more time before I head back to MSP, depending on how I feel the next few days.

So here's my take on my return to health:
1. Rest. I have been resting more than ever in San Diego. I'm not even walking around much here. I even cut out Alfredson's eccentric heel drop routine because I wasn't responding favorably to that for the first few weeks.

2. The GTN patches. Yeah, the studies show significant improvement after 12 weeks of use in a double blind study, but doesn't mean that there weren't improvements after only 2 weeks. It just means they weren't statistically significant enough to report.

3. M.A.T. Specialist. I was disappointed after my first visit with Debi, as it honestly didn't really feel like she was doing much. And even with my appointment yesterday it didn't feel like she was doing much, but I guess that's because I'm so used to the A.R.T. "no pain no gain" style of treatment. But I think what she was doing with my back certainly can help moving forward in preventing the likelihood of re-injury in the future. Big thanks and shout out to Brad Gloyeske for recommending M.A.T. and helping me find Debi for treatment.

Returning to running after 8 weeks off is an indescribably exhilarating and freeing activity. No longer bound to the eerie waters of the gym pool, swimming countless laps, gasping for air, and counting tiles, I have now run along the beach boulevard with the sun warming my skin, a fresh breeze at my back, and the sound of the ocean waves crashing ashore.  Just this morning I navigated to an abandoned road near the beach, closed my eyes, took a deep breath of the salty air, and ran in pure bliss. The rhythmic beating of my feet on the ground was matched by that of my heart. Cloud nine. I arrived.

Sunset Cliffs in San Diego

So tomorrow I gather my belongings and return to the frozen tundra from which I came. But I return with a healthy achilles and greater appreciation for the simple act of moving one foot in front of the other.  While this year's track season may not turn out to be all that I had dreamed of in December, I'll take joy in being given the opportunity to race and compete. Onward!

As a final note, many thanks to my "host family" of Brian Berling and Cortney Staruch, former teammates of mine at the University of Cincinnati.  They could not have been any more gracious to make me feel at home.  I had a blast with them as they took me around San Diego to see the sights, explore the culture, and enjoy excellent beer!

Brian and Cort at Stone Brewery Tap Room in Oceanside

Cross Country Cupidity

The past couple of weeks have been less than ideal training.  After a solid 7 weeks of continuous quality fall base, Dennis (Team USA MN's top notch coach) wanted to change my workouts up just a bit and put me into a 6k cross country race last weekend.  I was all excited about dusting off the old spikes and lacing them up for some soft surface fun, but before the weekend arrived, my left achilles flared up on me, complaining from the 70 miles I had put in the previous four days.  Yeah....I got a bit greedy for my current level of fitness.

So as my mileage plummeted over the course of the next few days and eventually hit rock bottom as I jumped on the spin bike for 5 days, my spirits too have fallen, but not as drastically as they have in the past. In the world of post-collegiate running, there is no home meet to attend, required conference race, or mandatory NCAAs for which to prepare: the season is what one makes of it.  This realization has lifted the burden of time sensitivity and pressure to rush back into intervals and long runs, it has allowed for a more conservative and healthy return to activity.  This is not to say that I'm not chomping at the bit to lace up and speed out the door, but it does allow for a greater long term perspective.

Injury aside, this past Friday I had the pleasure of attending the NCAA D1 Great Lakes Regional at the Thomas Zimmer Championship XC Course in Madison, WI.  What an incredible venue.

Thomas Zimmer XC Course

The afternoon of the race was an idyllic cross country day with 50° temperatures and a sunny sky beckoning for fast races fueled by a rowdy fans.  Below is a picture of the men's start with my former team, the Cincinnati Bearcats, on the far right:

2013 NCAA D1 XC Great Lakes Regional

As I watched the start that day, I have never wanted more badly to jump into a cross country race to experience the joy of pure racing, the rush of adrenaline over the hills, and the well digging drive to the finish. Races like those sit fondly in my memory!

So it is with this renewed energy of watching races that I am re-inspired to dive back into my rehab to recover from this bout of achilles soreness and carefully return to full training, preparing to have the best indoor and outdoor seasons of my life!

One Month and Many Miles

I'm coming up on the end of my first month with Team USA Minnesota in Minneapolis and I couldn't be happier with my decision to move and join this team.  For me, the move has been pivotal in my commitment towards being an elite distance runner--it was like jumping in headfirst rather than dabbling around with my toe.  With the move away from family and friends came the realization of a true commitment to fulfilling my potential as an athlete.

While I miss my family and friends back home, I am quickly finding my place here in Minneapolis among my amazing housemates, fantastic teammates, coach (Dennis Barker), and ever supportive team founder and president, Pat Goodwin.

The workouts that Dennis prescribes are not individually much more challenging than what I have done in the past (at least so far!), but it's the accumulation of 3-4 quality days a week that has fatigued my body more so than ever before.  But with that greater fatigue comes a greater training stimulus for improvement, and it is on that which I am supremely confident in a great season once I lace up the spikes.  As Dennis said to me earlier this week, "It's when you can put in months of this type of training uninterrupted that people make big jumps."  So for now, I'm just in the zone with training, looking forward to the day that I can test out the new limits of my body as the result of consistent quality workouts.

I had tossed out the idea of running in the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving, but Dennis didn't seem so keen on the idea of racing so soon.  That'll make my mom happy at least because I'll make my way back to Cincinnati for some turkey and mashed potatoes instead.  I'll likely end up jumping in the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race and see what happens, but won't be making any changes in my training schedule for it.

Beyond that, I had the pleasure to meet David Monti (elite athlete coordinator for NYRR events) this past weekend during the TCM events and I'm hoping to get a spot on the line for the Emerald Nuts 4 Miler on New Years Eve (gun goes off as the ball drops at midnight) in Central Park in NYC.  It would be really fun event and a great way to kick off the new year.

Following that rust buster, pending entry, indoor season will fall upon us with plans to run some fast races and compete at the US Indoor Championships in Albuquerque on February 22-23.

Until then, head down and blinders on!